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It might be harder than you think.

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Helicopters got to Wilmington, North Carolina, after a day of isolation; Hurricane Florence made landfall there, and the city, with one foot in the Atlantic and the other in the Cape Fear River, soon became an island. Its main roads underwater, Wilmington went without help until boats and choppers reached it with medical supplies, water, and food.

But it only took a day. According to the federal government, that's actually pretty fast. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001-or at least since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005-the government has urged all of us, every individual, to be ready to go without help for at least three days in the wake of a disaster. You're supposed to have kits in your cars and at home ... maybe not the shopping cart from The Road, but just, like, be ready, OK? And now with Florence a waning threat but with fires and storms an apparently permanent part of Earth's changed climate (and earthquakes, volcanoes, and terror always possible), the rules seem to be shifting a bit again. The new message: Be ready for 14 days on your own. Two weeks.

That's a lot of supplies to buy and store-especially when the whole idea of home disaster preparedness kits is based much more in conventional wisdom than actual data. On the other hand, one might save your life. Good luck, everyone!

Recommendations for what's supposed to go in these kits vary, but basically it's a gallon of water per person per day and food, too, plus medicines, blankets and sleeping bags, maybe a tent, extra eyeglasses, lots of batteries, something to make light with, something to make fire with, maybe a hand-cranked radio.

All that makes sense. "It is not realistic, even in developed countries, to expect that the governmental infrastructure will be able to reach everyone within hours," says Daniel Barnett, a disaster preparedness researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Individuals need to have self-sustainability." At minimum, you want to take as much pressure off of first responders as possible so they can triage effectively, attending to life-threatening situations while you chill in your backyard, if you're able. That's part of supporting what disaster pros call "resiliency," the ability of a community or region to withstand whatever it gets punched with. It's supposed to be interpersonal, too-neighbor to neighbor.

The problem with all that is, as Barnett and his colleagues showed in a 2012 review of the literature, almost no one actually builds kits. Well, perhaps fewer than half overall, but results varied wildly by region-as low as 7.4 percent in northeastern Alabama, much higher in post-Katrina New Orleans (85 percent of survey respondents had a disaster plan, but only 22 percent had a kit). Partially that's out of inertia, laziness, fear-all the things that keep everyone from preparing for anything. But also, older, better-educated, wealthier, home-ownier people were more likely to have kits than younger, less-educated, poorer people. And of course, poorer people are the ones who get hurt the most by disasters in the first place.

A couple of years ago things got even more complicated. In 2016 the Washington Military Department, essentially that state's National Guard, ran an exercise called Cascadia Rising. The idea was to simulate a response to an earthquake and subsequent tsunami emanating from the Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Northwest, subject of a much-read New Yorker article from the previous year. "Cascadia Rising was a massive eye-opener," says Karina Shagren, spokesperson for the Washington Military Department. "We realized there would be pockets of communities that won't receive help for several days, if not several weeks." Washington's coastal communities would lose the bridges that connect them to the rest of the world. They'd have to wait for help by air or sea.

So Washington and Oregon upped their estimates. People should expect to be on their own not for at least three days but at least two full weeks.

That messaging is now at the core of Washington's emergency preparedness. It has also trickled out nationally, albeit somewhat confusingly. A FEMA spokesperson says the agency now recommends "at least a three-day supply of food, water, and medications," but more water if it's really hot, and "up to two weeks of supplies when preparing for catastrophic events." A representative from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on point in case of pandemics or bioterror attacks, says his agency's recommendations echo FEMA's. Tom Heneghan, senior manager for Disaster Program Development at the American Red Cross (practically a quasi-governmental entity in times of disaster), says households and businesses should have three days of supplies in case people have to evacuate but two weeks' worth if people are sheltering in place.

Risk communications is hard, and disasters are complicated, but all that advice is frustrating. Three days is the go-bag, maybe? As a child of earthquake country I would venture that a two-week supply list for the aftermath of a Big One looks very different from the bioweapon pandemic checklist. The road to prepper madness is paved with surplus MREs, tarps, and duct tape. (I suggest gaffer tape, actually-DM me.)

For a family of four, a gallon of water per person per day for 14 days is 56 gallons of water, an industrial-sized drum. It's also more than 100 full meals, or a pantry full of cans, beef jerky, rice, and so on. It's a full complement of camping equipment. And it all has to be somewhere accessible and, ideally, not vulnerable to whatever kinds of disasters you're expecting. And none of this stuff is free. "There are massive issues of access and equity in terms of how people can stockpile even a couple of days' worth of supplies, much less 14 or more," says Anita Chandra, a disaster researcher at RAND. "When you're talking about disasters, you're talking about events that disproportionately affect those with the least access to assets." (Where Washington state is concerned, Shagren says they suggest people build their stashes a little bit at a time, as much as they can.)

Here's the worst part: Nobody knows if disaster preparedness kits actually help. They might! You should still have a kit, if you can do it. "Institutions are worried they can't get to people in time ... particularly people who live below or close to the poverty line," Chandra says. "It's coming from a concern about the fact that the resources are very mismatched against need." Which is to say, government agencies don't have the money to send a fire truck to every house after an earthquake or hurricane. People have to be able to help themselves.

But at the same time, a risk of this change in message is that it suggests that the government is abrogating its responsibilities, either out of incompetence or because of some kind of rugged-individualism message. "What matters in terms of disaster response and recovery is community connections and social cohesion," Chandra says. "The negative side of that conversation has been a twisting of that idea into, 'go take care of yourself.' That was never the intention."

Rugged individualization has failed once before. During the Cold War, the US government tried to get people to build fallout shelters in their backyards. "Social vulnerability just didn't get factored in. Nobody built them. It didn't ring true for people even then," says Scott Knowles, a disaster researcher at Drexel University. "By the mid-1960s, civil defense officials had figured that out, so they started hoarding stuff in the commons." Cities designated or built communal fallout shelters that were stocked with beds and supplies. "If we really want people to survive, we can't rely on them to hoard all that stuff in their homes. It's not rational. So maybe this is something for the government," Knowles says.

Is there stuff you should probably definitely have access to in your home? Sure. Copies of personal identification documents. Prescription medications. A good whistle. Lightsticks. Water purification tech. A crowbar. (The time you need a crowbar is the time you really, really need a crowbar.)

But the hard truth is, local communities can and probably should be filling gaps that government advice suggests are the responsibilities of individuals. The central insight that sparked full-fledged research into the sociology of disasters and their response was that people tend to help each other in times of distress. Disaster researchers and risk managers don't want to jeopardize that covenant. Yet that's the deeper risk of telling people they're on the hook to defend their own castles for two weeks after a disaster.

Yes, fill those jerry cans in the basement with water and get your solar cells ready, but when the disaster hits, share the water. Offer your neighbors a charge. Maybe they'll trade a bite of jerky. But it's not wrong to look toward government-local if not regional and national-for aid. Building cities in ways that don't exacerbate hazards is a start, like less impermeable surfacing, fewer buildings in the wildland-urban interface, and reined-in coastal and watershed development. Helping the most vulnerable people in a community now has humanitarian value, but also economic value-they'll be safe during and after a disaster, won't need rescuing, and can help with recovery.

That's the real lesson for putting together a disaster kit. It's there for whoever needs it. Someday that might be you; someday it might be your neighbors. Until the helicopters come, we're all in this together.

More Great WIRED Stories

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Your Bunker Should Have 3 Days of Rations-Or Is It 2 Weeks?

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Helicopters got to Wilmington, North Carolina, after a day of isolation; Hurricane Florence made landfall there, and the city, with one foot in the Atlantic and the other in the Cape Fear River, soon became an island. Its main roads underwater, Wilmington went without help until boats and choppers reached it with medical supplies, water, and food.

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In the event of an emergency, natural or otherwise, it is important to make sure that your family's basic needs are being met and that they are safe. The most effective way of to do this is to have a plan in place. It's very easy to panic during an emergency; being mentally and physically prepared may help to minimize that feeling of panic and enable you to keep your family calm, cool, collected, and most importantly, safe. An emergency preparedness plan should include a disaster supply kit, as well as any emergency essentials. Emergency preparedness supplies should also be arranged and easily accessible. While your family's emergency plan will be unique to you, there are a few general points that will help to best prepare you for success.

Creating a disaster supply kit is essential to an effective emergency preparedness plan. Stock your supply kits with medical supplies, medications, non-perishable foods, water, batteries, blankets, clothing, and other items. When creating stocking your supply kit, ask yourself "Does this item meet one or more of my basic needs or is it a luxury?" Doing this will help you to separate out what is and isn't an item you'll need in an emergency. Our basic necessities include: food, water, clothing, and shelter; everything else is a luxury in times of crisis.

Developing an easy-to-remember plan is also important. After all, an emergency plan is not effective if it isn't remembered. This is especially true for families with older adults or children to consider. Keep your emergency plan as simple as possible and use places that are very familiar and hard to forget. For example, in the event of a house fire, include a safe meeting space close by, like a next door neighbor's house. For a larger scale emergency, choose a familiar building, like a nearby school, to which the family can report. It also important that everyone knows what they're expected to do during an emergency. For example, a mother may be responsible for collecting her children and moving to safety and a father may be responsible for grabbing the emergency preparedness kit and meeting the family at the planned location. Again, this will be something that is very specific to your family and should be discussed and agreed on.

Write up and/or print out an emergency checklist and keep it someplace easily accessible and memorable. This checklist should include emergency contacts. It should also include local emergency phone numbers and addresses. A very short list of important items to be removed from the house may also be included (i.e. a folder with copies vital documents). Spare car keys may also be on this list and kept in the same vital folder, making it easy to grab and go. It may also be helpful to create separate lists for either members of your family or different types of emergencies. The most important thing to know when creating this checklist is that may need to change in a split second. It's important not to get too caught up in details that might slow down or endanger your family's wellbeing.

Preparing for extended periods of emergency is also important. Natural disasters may knock out power, pollute drinking water, and make it difficult for first responders to reach you. Best prepare to be in it for the long haul. An emergency food storage of canned and nonperishable items, as well as bottled drinking water are essential, especially for families living in areas with an increased likelihood of natural disasters, including hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, and snow emergencies.

It's also important to involve your community in your disaster preparedness plans. Let your neighbors know what you're doing to keep your family safe an encourage them to take precautions of their own. Building a proactive network of people that may be of assistance may help you and allow you to help others in need. Communication is a vital part of being prepared, no matter what the emergency may be, and it's best to over communicate, knowing that people around you may be stressed and may only retain part of the information being imparted.

By: Steven Moore

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Create an Emergency Preparedness Plan for your Family

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In the event of an emergency, natural or otherwise, it is important to make sure that your family's basic needs are being met and that they are safe. The most effective way of to do this is to have a plan in place.

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In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

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Predicting Resilience Model

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After 9/11, I was asked by the Baltimore City Health Commissioner to help prepare the city for a radiation terrorism event, because my entire career up until that point had been in radiation-based medical imaging. I didn't know anything about public health preparedness at the time, but I found it very fulfilling to work with the city health department and other first responders, especially fire and police. Public health preparedness science and research is more than multi-disciplinary, it's trans-disciplinary, which is what makes it fun.

Connecting behavioral and social science

The Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness has a particular interest in the mental and behavioral health challenges that people, organizations, and jurisdictions face during and after disasters. If you look at the disaster literature you will see references to dysfunction, which can be caused by either physical or psychological trauma. After a disaster, the number of people with psychological trauma exceeds the number of people with physical injury by as much as 40 to 1, but there is much more research and emergency response focus on the physical effects of a disaster rather than the psychosocial effects. Our interest and expertise in the behavioral science of disasters was the main reason that CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response asked us to work on an innovative model and index to measure resilience in the United States.

Understanding resilience in disasters

You can think about resilience on two levels - on the individual level and at the community level. For individuals, we are interested in three things: psychological resistance before a disaster, resilience during a disaster, and recovery after the disaster. Resilience at this level reflects the ability of someone to spring back after experiencing trauma from a disaster. We think about community resilience like an ecosystem. In any ecosystem there is a minimum requirement for the system to successfully function and survive. The same is true for a community. So when we think about community resilience, we must not only think about the ability of a community to return to its pre-event level of functioning, but also assess how that community is working at its lowest point after a disaster and determine if that is a level where it can still function successfully - or even at all.

Modeling resilience

We approached our colleagues at the University of Delaware Disaster Research Center, who are experts in the sociological factors in disasters that lead to emergent collective behavior. This phenomenon refers to a group of every-day people coming together to aid the formal emergency response. The COPEWELL (" Composite of Post- Event Well-Being") project was born out of this collaboration between experts in the psychological and sociological impacts of disasters on individuals and communities, along with experts in engineering, modeling, public health and healthcare, and other domains.

We realized that a static model with a single score for resilience would not capture the way a system changes over time and the many interrelated parts that make up a community. We came up with a system dynamics model, which allowed us to input different factors that characterize a community, including housing, communication, healthcare, and transportation. We then throw a disaster at the model and see how the community responds. Depending on the type of natural disaster or public health emergency, how a community functions plays out differently over time. For example, a pandemic usually builds slowly and reaches a peak before gradually decreasing, while a severe weather event spikes quickly and exponentially decreases. Different communities have different inherent characteristics that determine how well they can resist the negative effects of an event and how quickly they can recover. What is unique about COPEWELL is that it is a whole community model, not just a public health model, and looks at how the community functions over time, which allows you to derive a measure of resilience.

Putting the data to work

The COPEWELL model has been used to predict resilience after a disaster in all 3,100+ counties in the United States. We've also explored using the model at a more granular level, including at the neighborhood level in New York City. Experts are working on a web-based platform for the model that stakeholders such as government leaders and public health officials can use in their communities.

In addition to supporting the project, CDC has provided technical assistance and expertise to translate and apply the model in practice. Once more fully validated, the results from the model can be used to help identify and evaluate interventions to improve community resilience and accelerate recovery after a disaster.

Learn more

Posted on by Jon Links, Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Tags community, community ressilience, COPEWELL, disaster recovery, Johns Hopkins Center fo Public Health Preparedness, preparedness, preparedness research, preparedness science, resilience

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Predicting Community Resilience and Recovery After a Disaster

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After 9/11, I was asked by the Baltimore City Health Commissioner to help prepare the city for a radiation terrorism event, because my entire career up until that point had been in radiation-based medical imaging.

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All Hazards Approach

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